CHAPTER 21, MURDER MOST ELITE

Chapter 21 is hereby presented, but  first, dear readers, Boz presents two hot books for the political class, be they fledgling wonks or highly placed pros.

CATASTROPHE...AND HOW TO FIGHT BACK:  by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann.  Harper Collins.  $26.99.  In a stunning compilation of data, the authors spell out  President  Obama's blueprint for political domination, as well as what he intends to do to the citizens of the U.S. in order to attain that goal.  Claiming that the political catastrophe is already at hand, Morris exhorts those with sufficient vision to see the oncoming political tsunami to waste no time in protecting the U.S. before its utter collapse.  Forthright and keenly logical, this book offers a survival plan to upend disaster. 

COURAGE AND CONSEQUENCE: by Karl Rove.  Simon & Schuster.  $30.00.  The czar of the Bush administration's political structure, Rove's clever and successful tale of  how he aced  the South Carolina  primary presidential election is an eye-opener for those not familiar with high-stakes statistical data and how to use it.  Rove highlights the inside story of the Bush administration as few writers know how to do, with first-hand glimpses of George W. rarely publicized.  A fine read.

And now  MURDER MOST ELITE, CHAPTER 21:
                         
Donna shouted at  me over the phone, "Yo, Nena, hot news on the Gilreath front!  Hold onto your socks!"

She had just come from lunch with Amy Gilreath, who had disclosed  the following:  The Gilreaths had been overwhelmed by the emotional impact of Steve's conviction.  The only good news was that Tom Dyson had volunteered to appeal the case without fee, convinced that Steve had been convicted under a highly questionable 1829 legal opinion.  He intended to file a first appeal at once, which doubtless would be rejected, but then he would file in federal court, where presumably a more intellectually honest judiciary would prevail.

The family became disheartened during the trial when day after day they heard on radio and TV and read in the print media, especially The Washington Post, stories about Steve that were outright lies.  The media depicted him as a monster, a vulture, a gorilla, a prowling giant, a psychopath, a sadist; and never failed to mention his height.  What better way to win a case than to have the public on your side?  With friends like the media, how could Horan lose?

The Gilreaths did admit that Horan had been at his best during his dramatic closing argument, passing sensational color photographs of Tasha Semler's dead body to the jury.  Naturally, they winced, grimaced and stared at Steve with loathing when Horan flaunted Exhibit 17, the fece-laden cloth, at them.  But the family could not understand why Dyson hadn't cross-examined the two guards handcuffed to Steve, who would have had to testify that Steve could not have unburied exhibit 17, as  Riddel had claimed.  The jury would never know that fact.

When Lori Gayle Newbold broke down and sobbed in the courtroom, the family wondered what triggered this second crying jag.  They had been told she was accompanied by Madeira School headmistress Barbara Keyser.  Jayne and Amy supposed this was true because while they were out in the hallway during a recess, detective James Riddel approached Jayne, smiling broadly, and asked her, "Are you the school marm?"  He seemed surprised when she said no.

At home after Steve's conviction, Amy was reflecting on the heartbreaking end at Virginia Beach when the doorbell rang.  Alice Ayers, her neighbor, rushed into the kitchen to put down her large bags of homemade food: a beef casserole, a coconut and pineapple salad, and  a chocolate dessert.  But that gift was not the reason for her visit.

Alice disclosed that she had seen Steve's car twice on the day of the abduction of Tasha Semler.  Once at about 12:30 p.m. and again at 1:30 p.m.  "Steve was here that day, so he couldn't have been at the Madeira School.  His car was outside the garage, the vivid orange Volkswagen with the black fenders.  With that paint job, it was the only car like it in the world."

Christine Nolan's uncontradicted written testimony placed Tasha as last seen at 12:30 p.m., so Alice's memory now proved the confession was, again, false.  It never occurred to Alice that Steve would be found guilty.  She had not come forward because Richard Ayers, her husband, didn't want to get involved with Steve's case.  Alice now agreed to take a deposition at Tom Dysons's office.  Amy even enjoyed telling her political friend in Congressman Stan Parris's office in front of two FBI agents having coffee there, that Steve now had an eyewitness to show he was not at the Madeira School on October 29th.  It gave her something to push back with, in her parlance.

Her elation was short lived.  Alice Ayers was found dead in her bedroom in mid-day, allegedly shot twice with a .357 magnum.  Her front door had been hacked into with an ax.  FBI agents had  taken Richard to Arlington hospital.  The police claimed Alice had committed suicide, though obviously it was impossible to shoot oneself twice with a .357 magnum. 

Somebody murdered Alice one day before she was to have met with Tom Dyson.

Amy and Jayne paid a condolence call on Richard and when Amy mentioned Alice's agreeing to testify for Steve, he told them the FBI had warned him to "not make waves in the Gilreath case."  It would never get to federal court, they said.  He quickly ushered them out of the house.

"And Nena," Donna said to me, "On Alice's tombstone, it reads 'She touched life with a loving hand.'  So now we have a genuine murder-one to deal with.  The cops never let any of Alice's friends see any of the evidence.  And none of her friends believed that Alice would ever shoot herself.  No way."

Specific questions about Alice's death would remain unanswered by the Prince William County police.  And it became more galling than ever to learn that Jill Clark, (perhaps known as Gillian),  who had worked in the Fairfax County police station, told Jimmy Gilreath that Steve had been railroaded.  A friend of Amy's, Senie Gibson, had seen Steve's car in front of the house that day around noon, but refused to testify for Steve because "I don't want to get bumped off like Alice Ayers."

 So began the long years of trying to get Steve out of prison.  The family couldn't get in touch with Tom  Dyson for a year and a half.  Finally, they hired Gilbert K. Davis, who had run against Horan and lost in the 1975 election.  At the appeal hearing presided by federal judge Robert R. Merhige, Davis succeeded in making the polygraph examiner, James Bruce, admit he had  made critical errors interpreting two lie detector responses.  He testified that he had used his role to assist the police in obtaining a confession from Steve.

All the appeals were disasters.  No judge believed  Steve was not guilty.  They conveniently followed the specious lines of reasoning from the trial judge's comments.

The internationally famous habeas corpus lawyer from Chicago, Luis Kutner, believed that Steve had been set up, but could not help as much as he wished because Steve thought his fee was too high.  Steve's peremptory dismissal of Kutner was foolhardy and destructive because Kutner would have gladly reduced his fee if he had been asked.

After the Fourth Circuit court denied the appeal, the Gilreaths decided not to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  By that time, they had little confidence in the criminal justice system.  Congressman Stanford Parris advised Amy to "forget you have a son."  It was taken for granted that the name Gilreath had become a code word for what had happened at the Madeira School to the Newbold and Semler girls.  Even acquaintances with great good will realized that the  Gilreaths were not rich enough or powerful enough to save their son in the courts.  One FBI agent had warned them that "Someone has to pay, guilty or not, that's the way the system works, so get used to it."

And there was ongoing opposition.  In 1990 supporters and elected officials on behalf of the Madeira School demanded that Steve not be paroled even though he had a perfect prison record.   Headmistress Elisabeth Griffith claimed that Steve had threatened to return to the school, presumably to do harm, calling this a "psychological component."  Steve had never said any such thing.  Madeira was the last place on earth he wanted to visit.  But Ms. Griffith persuaded community leaders and supporters to write letters to the parole board members demanding Gilreath never be paroled.

Her appeal has been granted.  Regardless of what  a fine record he had achieved, parole has always been denied, the same reason always given: "...because of the nature of your crime."

In July the A Group met at Descanso to discuss how best to construct our final report for Dr. Stein.  We concluded our research, though not exactly happy that we couldn't reach some key people, like Riddel and Dr. Wadeson.  I asked first what we should tell Irv.  What had we learned? 

"One thing we have to emphasize is the role of the media.  Once Gilreath signed  that phony confession, the media vultures got him," Donna said.  "But we have to start with Horan's vendetta against Amy Gilreath.  That begins the tragedy.  And Exhibit 17 that clinched the prosecution's case was enough to deny Steve parole for the rest of his life."  The parole officials  would never know that  the prosecution's description of that evidence was completely untrue.  "I agree," David chimed in, "but also we have to incorporate the true nature of Steve Gilreath's mental states at various critical times.  Like his being totally unable to defend himself against the clever cops during accusatory interrogation.  Even though his life depended on it, literally.  That's so tragically schizoid."

I agreed, adding that the cops were always after Jim Gilreath.  Even when Riddel and Boggess  first saw Steve at his apartment, Riddel immediately asked him "Where's your brother, Jim?"  David also pointed out that two FBI agents visited Steve in Richmond prison and asked Steve the same question, where was Jim?  That's key to the story.   Jim was always the target.

"So was Amy Gilreath,"I added.

We also decided to emphasize Lori Gayle Newbold's wish to meet with Steve and Paul Folliard, Steve's probation officer.  What was it she wanted to tell them?  Why did she attend the Semler trial?  Why didn't Dyson get the  Santa Barbara telephone company to verify that Jim Gilreath phoned Steve at home on the morning of the 29th of October, shortly before Tasha Semler was abducted?  That could have been part of a successful defense.

"Yeah," David said,  "and you know Steve was almost whacked in jail.  The guy has grown old in prison, but you can't tell me there aren't people out there who know he was innocent.  Like Jill Clark, for one.  He was set up, from the jump."

As to Alice Ayers,  we left that issue  in the Prince William County police department's and  Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert's lap.

Milly had the last word.  "Isn't it ironic that Steve Gilreath, the direct descendant of Rolf the Norse and other great historic figures down to Augustine Washington, George Washington's father, and scion of the freedom fighting Cleland clan in Scotland, fell victim to a heinous set up like this?"

Each A Group member submitted a summary of his/her research.  We decided that I would write the first draft report, they could comment, and we'd try for a final by August.

I was pleased when the final report was ready, beautifully typed and handsomely bound.  We each got a copy and sent one to Irv.

He responded that we must meet him on September 6, in New York, for a full review of our assignment.

After what we had been through with the Gilreath family, we were ready.

And we all became Ph.Ds.

                                             Your obedient servant,

                                              Boz

CHAPTER 20, MURDER MOST ELITE

Now, dear readers, I present Chapter 20 of  MURDER MOST ELITE.  But first, our book selections:

THE HIDDEN MILLIONAIRE: Twelve Principles to Uncovering the Entrepreneur in You by Anthony Morrison.  Morrison Publishing, Inc.  $24.95.  This is the first of the two must-read books about how to become a millionaire and live happily ever after.
ADVERTISING PROFITS FROM HOME.  This second book tells how to attain the skills necessary to make that first million dollars, and more.  Giving specific steps for the novice to become an expert in all things technical in the Internet World, Morrison stands at the ready to teach, day by day, million dollars by million dollars.  For all ambitious people willing to put forth the energy, these are two upfront roads to success in the new world order of cyberspace.  Actually a great dollar value considering the lengths Morrison is willing to go to render assistance to his students.

BROKE!  by Glenn Beck. Simon & Schuster. $29.99.  With humor and accuracy, Beck shows the readers the pitfalls of the U.S. monetary policy from the time of the founding fathers.  More of a cautionary tale than most voters might realize, Beck's contribution to the prosperous hoped-for culture deserves careful study and full support in favor of solvency.  The result of not doing so he sees as loss of sovereignty.  AKA the Disunited States.

And now the next installment of Joan Bretz's MURDER MOST ELITE:

                                                      CHAPTER 20  

Judge Plummer's decision to send Steve Gilreath to The Psychiatric Institute in Washington, D. C. or PI as he called it, instead of a jail term, prospered Steve enormously.  Dr. Ralph Wadeson, his psychiatrist, diagnosed Steve as a schizophrenic, latent type.  With Wadeson's expert  assistance, for the first time in his life, Steve began to relate positively to other people and to openly discuss his inner turmoil.   And then a most wonderful thing happened: he fell in love with a beautiful girl, Martha.  After so many years, our A Team found that no one could remember her last name, whether it was Randelle or Randall, so we opted for clarity's sake to merely refer to her as Martha.

Fairfax County lead detective James Riddel and his partner  Guy Cecil Boggess interviewed Steve at his apartment in the District, then at the local police station, all the while claiming he was involved in the murder of Tasha Semler.  They ordered him to the Fairfax County jail for further investigation the next day.  By then Steve was in a state of utter anxiety, and in his panic before leaving for the interview, he overdosed on stelazine, but did not take the necessary antidote, cogentin.

After twenty-three hours of interrogation, he became so groggy that he finally caved in, and agreed that he was guilty.  The police then took him to the Madeira School around midnight to re-enact  what he had supposedly done, though he knew he was not guilty.  His wrists cuffed to two police guards, the three men  saw detective Riddel hold up a rag in his hand, as he hollered for them to come where he was.  He asked if this was what Steve had used to bind the victim.  Vulnerable, dizzy and hungry, and true to his habitual reaction to accusations, Steve mumbled that "it must be so, if you say so."  The rag was entered as evidence at the trial as Exhibit 17.

Later at the jail as Steve was reading over the typed confession, police chief William Durrer said, "Sign that thing, son, because you're either going out of here with a number on your back or a tag on your toe."

Steve, now terrified of dying at the hands of the police, signed.  Shortly after this news hit the local media, Martha left PI and never attempted to say good-bye to Steve.  He never talked about her again.  It hurt too much.

The next day he recanted the confession.

In March of 1974, Dr. Wadeson visited Steve in prison, dismayed to find him psychotic.  During the trial Steve remained groggy and listless, barely able to function.  His psychiatrist never knew that he had received non-prescribed drugs daily and hypodermic needle shots of unknown drugs.  He did not begin to recover until several months after his conviction, when he refused further drug treatment.

Now the A Group tackled the huge task of analyzing the Semler trial  which took place at Virginia Beach.  The transcript alone was six inches high.  One full storage box stood on the dining room table with Milly's media collection next to a  box of  David's research of Steve's history in prison and personal experiences about the trials and therapy at PI.

I first looked at the confession as read to the jury by prosecutor Horan.  I read it once.  Then again.  At that point, I knew that Steve Gilreath was not guilty of the death of Natalia Parker Semler.  The confession was invalid.

This narrative began with the subject leaving his Washington  D. C. apartment at about 10:30 a.m.  He drove to the C&O Canal in Maryland, where he swam for 1 1/2 hours, or until "noon."  However, this timeline cannot be correct because it fails to factor in the driving time from the apartment to the canal.  The subject could not possibly have arrived there until 11:00 a.m. at the earliest, and given the rain that day the time would more accurately be at minimum 11:30 a.m. or 11:45 a.m.  After the swim the correct time would be  around 12:30 p.m., the exact time Madeira student Christine Nolan swore she last saw Tasha Semler on her way to her drama class that began at 12:45.  Tasha Semler never attended that class because she was abducted between 12:30 and 12:45 p.m.

At 12:30 p.m., the subject of this confession would have been in the state of Maryland.  Not Virginia.

Therefore, he could not have met the victim at the school in Virginia.

One unalterable rule must be in place: The confession must be accepted exactly as stated, and cannot be altered in any way, i.e., no one can interpolate what the subject might have done, or could have done.  This sworn statement  cannot be amended or edited by any outside source.

The accused was therefore not guilty according to the storyline in the confession, and therefore the confession must be thrown out as evidence.

My A Group pals were speechless at what I had found.  Thrilled because the confession was the only piece of material evidence against Steve, though Donna reported to us later that the Gilreath family  was furious that Tom Dyson, the court-appointed attorney, had not analyzed the confession correctly, a major legal faux pas, to put it lightly. 

Why did this discovery of mine come as no surprise?

The Newbold case had caused me to be suspicious of a set up, regardless of how cleverly planned and implemented.  And now this confession fit so well into the correctly exposed Get Gilreath edict in Fairfax County.

Our attention now turned to the media reports.  Most news sources about Tasha Semler's death began at 6:00 p.m., Monday, October 29,  when she had not met her older sister Tatiana, at the bus stop for their ride home to Arlington.  Police organized a search party of thirty Arlington County fire and police departments,  rescue squadsmen, Tasha's father Peter Semler, and the family golden retriever.  Fairfax County police issued a signal 36 lookout alarm throughout the Washington area.  The only evidence they found at the school was two  bikes missing from the bike pool that could not be identified as having been used by Tasha Semler.

Police called off the search at around 2:00 a.m.  At first light, Peter Semler appeared at the school and informed police chief Durrer that he had found his daughter dead in the woods, but he refused to reveal the location until he had spoken with Tasha's grandparents and his lawyer.  Durrer agreed, pledging not to discuss the details with the media if Semler would lead the police to the crime scene.  Later that morning, Semler escorted them to where Tasha lay, about 100 yards from the chapel auditorium.

Personally I thought this scene looked orchestrated.  It raised more questions than it answered.

At this point police ordered a total press blackout.  Everyone at the school was forbidden to talk about the murder, as well as all law enforcement personnel.  Yet only hours before, every detail had been immediately relayed to the media.  By 11:00 a.m. Tasha's body had been delivered to the medical examiners at Fairfax Hospital.

Robert F. Horan Jr. was the first person to break the media blackout, achieving celebrity status as the sole authority for all information.  According to him in his widely publicized statement, Tasha's death was a "particularly brutal murder."  Claiming she had bled profusely, though she was not raped, she put up a "furious struggle." He quickly defined the case as sexual, involving "sex, however weird."

Shortly after midnight on November 1, Horan called a press conference to dramatically announce that John Stephen Gilreath had been arrested for the murder of Tasha Semler.  He had been a suspect ten minutes after the police had located the body.

I took a look at the  newspaper reports, and while some were jarring, I noted that e.g., The Star News wrote that "In an interview with WRC-TV yesterday, Madeira School Headmistress Barbara Keyser said Gilreath's unauthorized release from the [psychiatric] hospital had driven the girl he had assaulted two years ago to the brink of hysteria.  'I think she's very near the breaking point....  This is a child who has lived in mortal fear for two years.  We thought it was an irrational terror because we thought the man [Gilreath] was locked up, and then we discovered he isn't.'"

Keyser charged that the police knew of his reappearance at the school wearing only a loincloth, but failed to notify the school administration.  The article stated that when Steve was tried in the Newbold case, he went berserk in the courtroom and half a dozen bailiffs had to subdue him.

None of those stories was true.

The Gilreath family's anxiety was heightened when The Star News quoted Lieutenant James Horvath of the Fairfax County Sheriff's office saying that Steve was medicated with tranquilizers and antidepressant drugs because of hypertension.  And that Steve had tried several times to commit suicide in jail two years ago.  Again, untrue.

Jimmy Gilreath's response was emphatic: "If that guy, Horvath, is the one I'm thinking of, he wanted to send me to jail for ten years for running a red light."  

Milly sent me a long email, saying "Hey, Nena, here's some real good new info.  Guess who has a special interest in the Madeira School?  It puts a singularly new and important perspective on the two cases, especially the death of Tasha Semler.  Dig this, amiga: Eugene Meyer, the father of of the most powerful woman in the United States, CEO of The Washington Post, Katharine Graham, had donated the land for the school.  Graham had graduated  from there."

And Milly reported the consensus in the Northern Virginia community was that though Ms. Graham was not involved in the daily administration of the school, any and all important issues must have her full support or  they were trashed.  Madeira was her pet, her baby, so to speak.  She owned it.

Milly concluded that it followed that The Post's reportage of the Semler murder must have the complete approval of Ms. Graham.  Her desk was exactly where the buck stopped and nowhere else.  Horan had a magnificent ally in The Post supporting his case  against Gilreath because the word on the street was emphatic that Graham would never permit one negative word about Madeira School to reach the public.  Not from her paper.

 "And remember this, Nena," Milly wrote, "everyone said that Horan absolutely had to win this case because he was up for election in 1975.  He had been appointed to the office of Commonwealth Attorney but relatively speaking, he was not a well known legal figure to the voters.  Ergo, it was vital that he send Gilreath to prison."

I read the complete 1,532 page transcript of the trial, and annotated it.  Then I declared the case an utter disaster for Steve Gilreath, beginning with court-appointed Tom Dyson's defense presentation that 1) Steve was never at the school, never sighted by anyone among the 300-plus people there, and was not guilty.  And 2) that if he was guilty, as described by attorney Blair Howard (also appointed by the court), it was because of mental defect as he referenced from the Newbold case.  Other key points were that the tapes of the interviews of  Steve and the attending officers were destroyed by an electronic eraser.  Also, Steve's testimony was a catastrophe.  He failed to remember basic facts or to correctly pronounce the name of his apartment building.  Amy and Stan's testimonies gave the net effect of something being wrong with him from childhood.  Dr. Wadeson successfuly described Steve as so vulnerable under attacks by the police that he had lost his sense of reality.  This meant that his caving into them had been caused by them, the reflex acting out of an old pattern, which was an example of pure cause and effect.   A second qualified psychiatrist, Dr. Frank Hague, agreed with Dr. Wadeson, noting that Steve had always been timid, recessive and fearful.  Unable to fend for himself under pressure, he was an easy target for the police to elicit a confession from.

Dyson claimed that  officer William L. Johnson had given a pair of riding britches found on a bicycle to officer Riddel.  The A  Group knew it should have been key evidence, but no one knew what had happened to it.  It had disappeared.

Blair Howard argued that if Steve was guilty, it was because of a mental defect Howard claimed was demonstrated in the Newbold case, as well as irresistible impulse; therefore Gilreath must be acquitted.  Pat Furey, the intern for the defense team, made no closing argument.

Clearly, the prosecution intended to convince the jury, the media, and the public that Exhibit 17 which Riddel had uncovered at the re-enactment contained Gilreath's feces.  But the FBI chemical lab's report found no traces of feces on any of the fabrics submitted for chemical examination.

Prosecutor Horan stated that Gilreath had used Exhibit 17 to tie and bind the victim which was smeared with Gilreath's feces.  He waved the exhibit at the jurors, who reacted with horror and disgust as did the members of the audience. Steve Goldberg, reporter for The Virginian-Pilot, wrote that "Horan placed an excrement-covered  piece of blanket on the rail in front of the jurors, and said Gilreath, 23, had told police he wiped himself with the material after defecating in the woods on the day of the slaying."

Whoa!  Now the A Group detectives had something to howl about!  On line 284 of the confession, the questioner asked the suspect, "When you went to the bathroom was this prior to going up to the chapel?"  And the suspect answered "This was prior to going up to Black Pond."  The suspect had earlier stated that he first had a swim at Black Pond, then headed over to the chapel auditorium, where he stood next to the air conditioning unit and ultimately met the victim.

So the confession clearly shows that the piece of blanket used for wiping purposes had been discarded before the subject hiked to Black Pond, and  before he encountered Tasha Semler.  He could not possibly have had that piece of a blanket with him when he first met Tasha Semler.  Therefore Horan's statements were entirely false.

None of the defense team informed the jury that there was no trace of feces on any of the pieces of blanket used on Tasha Semler.

We wanted to know why, why hadn't the defense accurately analyzed the confession, because if they had they could have defeated Horan's arguments.  The jury would have then fully understood why Steve must be acquitted.  That would have been true justice.

What could account for Horan making such a patently untrue claim before the jury?  Was he attempting to protect the privileged Madeira students, considered the jewel in the crown of Northern Virginia?  The  creme de la creme from fine affluent families?  The ultimate in beautiful young womanhood?

How could the prosecutor now rationalize turning Exhibit 17 into defamatory and untrue evidence on which to convict Steve Gilreath?

Whenever we asked that question, those famous words immediately came up that were common knowledge in Northern Virginia: Horan had to win the 1975 election! 

That was the only possible answer.


                      Your obedient servant,
                      Boz
  

CHAPTER 19, MURDER MOST ELITE

Chapter 19 in MURDER MOST  ELITE is now presented, good and faithful readers.  And  I am happy first  to present for your ongoing reading pleasure
                                            
                                               BOZ'S BEST BOOK BUYS 

MURDER MOST HOLLYWOOD by Joan Bretz.  Amazon, $13.  PI/clinical psychologist Nena Santana charged with locating the missing back-street mistress of the world's greatest comedian, finds the lady very much dead, mafia style.  This story is not what it appears to be, a "chick lit" piece, but rather a cleverly wrought answer to Freud's question "What do women want?"  A real cautionary tale.   In searing detail, the author exposes a  close look at  Hollywood's  non-benevolent heroes and heroines, for better or for worse, in acute sickness for sure and not in very good health.  You will never be bored with this inside-show-business story.

GOVERNMENT PIRATES: The assault on private property rights and how we can fight it, by Don Corace.  Harper, $14.95.  A sneaky new scam now seizes the right of eminent domain to rob a land owner of property, in the guise perhaps of special interest/private business masquerading as civic necessity.  A penetrating exposure at growing abuses of eminent domain and the great financial losses many citizens have experienced will hopefully stimulate action to stop this scourge.  A gripping drama, and an absolutely excoriating list of graft in low and high places.  Good to know about, for one's own protection.s

And now the second installment of MURDER MOST ELITE:

                                                                  CHAPTER 19

Shock and awe hit all of us in the A Group upon grasping the unknown history of the Newbold case when Amy Gilreath dropped her bombshell.  We had assumed, quite wrongly, that the narrative confession had been part of the court record at the trial.  Not so.  Amy told us that after the trial, she had seen the trial transcript at the Fairfax County courthouse, typed on 8/12 x 11 inch white bond paper.  But in 1982, ten years after the trial, when again she viewed the transcript at the courthouse, she immediately realized that it was not the original transcript she had seen in 1972.  She blew our minds with the fact that in her first transcript viewing there was no mention of an Exhibit 2, the narrative confession.  Typed on crisp, white bond paper, in the upper left-hand corner, an entirely new document was labeled as Exhibit 2, dated May 3, 1972, the date of the trial.

It was only in reading the longer, new version that Amy finally realized the true source of extraordinary exploits attributed to Steve by the media, especially the bizarre life-risking swim over the Potomac River from Maryland to Virginia.

For so many years, she and the family had thought that the intense media descriptions had been purely imaginary on the part of cheap attention-seeking news  reporters.  Now the Gilreaths knew that the only possible major sources who had fed, i.e. leaked, damaging disinformation to the media were law enforcement officers.  Cops.   

Amy was flabbergasted that Exhibit 2 was never introduced as evidence at the trial, even though everyone at the courthouse would claim later that it had always been public information, but the Gilreath family, Steve's lawyers, as well as their paralegal staff, knew that was not true. 

Someone went to a lot of trouble to set up the appearance of Steve's having a legitimate interview with officer Robert LaClair, one that the stenographer then typed as Gilreath's testimony, and that this document bore Steve's signature, though we knew it was actually a facsimile only, a  convenient forgery.  We understood  the full significance of one vital factor now more than ever to be carefully considered.  From childhood, Steve Gilreath had readily confessed to acts he had not committed, and under stress, he would admit to anything "to get it over with," in his own words.  He was destined to repeat this reflex, a destructive habit in any frightening situation, such as when he was accused of abduction and attempted rape.

From our studies of the "confessor" type, we knew that innocent people come forward and confess to crimes, often violent crimes, which they did not commit.  Law enforcement officials all over the world deal with this type of behavior every day, which is one excellent reason why corroborative evidence is  required to validate any confession.  

Also, hostile Fairfax County police had harassed Jim Gilreath for one full year, claiming in public without evidence that both Jim and Steve were juvenile delinquents.  Police authorities could have as easily tracked Steve as they had been able to track Jim, to know what Steve looked like and the license number of his Volkswagen.  To apprehend Steve in McLean, which was close enough to the Madeira School  so as to make his presence near there look suspicious, proved to be a piece of outstanding good luck for the prosecution. 

Even a timid, nervous person like Steve should have some memory of a narrative confession of such great magnitude, especially one that landed him in jail.  However, he had no memory of the text of Exhibit 2.

The chances are slim that even an expert investigator could not conduct a three-plus-hours-long confession given the difficulty Steve had always had in articulating his thoughts .  The English language was his Achilles Heel; he often found it difficult to speak under trying conditions.  It would have been a near impossibility for him to knock off a detailed, lengthy coherent narrative in a one-half-hour session.

How best to construct the Newbold case for the A Group now lay before me.  I began with two assumptions.

ASSUMPTION 1.  Steve Gilreath did not give the narrative confession, Exhibit 2.

I cited numerous contradictions and inconsistencies, plus the forgery of his name.  I also included Mrs. Amy Gilreath's experience: that there was no Exhibit 2 presented in the court trial.  The only paper Steve signed in court was a  14" x 8 1/2 " pre-typewritten admission of guilt, titled PLEA OF GUILTY TO A FELONY, like the one he had signed previously in Harrington's office many months before the trial as a requirement for Horan's plea bargain, which Harrington promised was a "good deal." Steve signed another one, presumably, in court,  also signed by Paul H. Harrington, Jr.   At this point perhaps everyone was expected to accept this second  pre-typewritten form as Exhibit 2, a cover for the genuine, but hidden narrative.

Had the text of Exhibit 2 been revealed in court, Steve would have immediately changed his plea to not guilty, then fired Pat Harrington on the spot.

 Officer Robert  LaClair required no special training to know that an utterly incoherent confession was that of an habitual confessor who also gives the impression of being a mental defective.  And that the situation should have been referred to his superior officer, who probably would release this suspect immediately. 

The matter about what the subject of this confession wore was easy to fathom.   On  page five of the  narrative,  Steve  is quoted as saying that he removed  his clothing "At the rock which both of us, the girl and I, were located." 

Question: In other words, you swam the river fully clothed?

Answer: No, I swam the river in the loin cloth so my clothing wouldn't get wet.

Question:  You said that you were clothed in a loin cloth type outfit about your waist?

Answer:  Yes, an orange towel.

Steve then is quoted as saying that he threw the towel somewhere in the river.  "I threw it in when I was finished with it, when I reached the Virginia side."

This meant he was naked  during the entire time he was with the Newbold girl.  Yet her testimony is that he wore a towel.  This construct alone renders this narrative invalid to the degree that it should have been thrown out  at once by the judge.  And there was one paramount point that we A Group analysts took very seriously:  The confession must be accepted as is, no one may interpolate, i.e.,  either add or subtract, any statement, not even one word from the text.  No one.  We are not allowed to dwell on what a person might have done, or could have thought. No. We must accept that the subject of this narrative was naked, regardless of what Ms. Newbold claimed in court.  One need not accept that a young girl in her position did not  notice that her alleged rapist was naked, and not wearing an orange towel around him.  Thus her credibility is completely damaged, to the extent that the entire confession is invalid. 

ASSUMPTION 2.  Steve Gilreath gave LaClair the confession. 

If he did so, it was from a loss of reality  caused by a psychosis.  But even however mild and temporary the psychosis might have been, of which he had no memory, he could not be held responsible for the contents since key statements and assertions were obviously untrue, which officer LaClair should have easily determined.

How, I asked myself,  did Exhibit 2 get placed into the official court record ?  Some sleight-of-hand maneuver unseen by the onlookers could have taken place at the trial.  But if that confession had been entered, any average defense attorney could have and would have immediately challenged its veracity, exposing it as totally without foundation.

Harrington did not contact Dr. Carleton Smith at NOVA Community College to retrieve the test paper written at exactly the same time and on the same day Ms. Newbold accused Steve of abduction.  That test paper would have proved Steve not guilty.  We know that Steve got an A  on that test.

Trial Judge William Plummer's sending Steve to The Psychiatric Institute in Washington, D.C. instead of  jail for twenty years suggests that Plummer read the narrative and concluded that  Steve was some kind of mental case.  The only information that could possibly have given him reason to believe that Steve was mentally ill lay in the knowledge that Steve was seeing a psychiatrist.  The fact was that the psychiatric hospital Steve was sent to for evaluation in Virginia found him not  mentally ill.

Judge Plummer must have believed that the narrative confession was invalid, given its obvious legal defects.  If invalid, it would then require Plummer to acquit Steve, to let him go free.  Instead, Plummer delivered a guilty verdict without valid corroborating evidence, directly opposite to logical judicial practice.

Also, Judge Plummer tried Steve Gilreath on the charge of attempted rape, though prosecutor Joseph Howard had dropped this charge, from the moment Plummer let Howard, with no objection from Pat Harrington, ask Lori Newbold to describe the physical acts that happened at the rock in the Potomac.  Plummer failed to remind the lawyers that the attempted rape charge had been dropped and therefore no testimony  on that subject could properly be included in the record.  Further, the judge must have known that the charge should have been filed in the jurisdiction of Montgomery County, Maryland.  As a result of these judicial errors, it was always mistakenly assumed that Steve was found guilty of attempted rape, which was never true.

 In his first and only meeting with Steve, Harrington persuaded his client to accept Horan's plea bargain and sign a typewritten statement of guilt.  He rhapsodized about what a "good deal" it was, and told Steve "That's the way these things are always done."  

Harrington knew that Steve had an alibi.  Amy Gilreath mailed Steve's mechanical engineering test paper to Harrington, who ignored it.  Harrington did not argue that Steve should have had an attorney present when LaClair questioned him.  Nor did he ever contact Steve's therapist, Dr. Sobotka.  Nor did Harrington ever question Lori Newbold as to her identifying Steve.  The police photos taken of Steve were never entered into evidence.

After the judge found Steve guilty, Harrington requested a pre-sentence investigation and report before the judge sentenced Steve.  Plummer agreed, then read aloud from a report from the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.  He noted a number of  previous "incidents" including one in March 1970, another in Maryland, and one indecent exposure and assault case.  None of these charges were true, but Harrington claimed in court that he knew about the indecent exposure incident.  I wondered where he got that information.

Given the top secret status assigned to the pre-sentence report, it must contain valuable information about Steve Gilreath because statements attributed to it have been cranked into his official records for over thirty years according to Amy Gilreath.  Yet the Virginia correction system's staff  counselors refuse to show it to Steve or his family.

We learned a fascinating coda to the Newbold trial: Lori Gayle Newbold asked Gilreath's probation officer, Paul Folliard, for a private meeting with him and Steve.  Folliard turned down her request, leaving open the question of exactly what she wanted.  Did she want to tell them she knew Steve was not guilty, that she was too embarrassed and under too much pressure to tell the truth earlier in court?

I asked the A Group for their question of witnesses on the narrative question.  The fact was that officer LaClair was the only witness, though there were two lines for witnesses to sign their names on.  So why didn't the stenographer, Penny A. Hardin, sign on the second line?  I ask these questions because there was also a line with the date and place for a signature of a notary public.  But there was no notary public to view the signings, an omission for which there was no excuse in a well functioning police department intent on securing an important confession. 

The nine-page confession took exactly one half hour to obtain, yet it took three hours to transcribe.  Why?  And in the most unprofessional police procedure, throughout the confession the subject's name was misspelled on every page.  So at the end, I had more questions to ask, with no answers easily forthcoming.

The A Group noted Amy's well connected friends in the Republican Party could have recommended a top-drawer defense lawyer, who undoubtedly would have called Carleton Smith as a defense witness, and destroyed Lori's testimony.  That would have prevented the false narrative confession from surreptitiously being introduced as evidence after the trial.  Not one of the many candidates Amy had helped become elected officials offered to help insure that her son was treated fairly under law.

Fate stepped in to hand  Steve Gilreath a severe legal challenge on October 29, 1973 when Natalia Parker (Tasha) Semler, a 14-year old freshman student at the Madeira School,  died of exhaustion while tied to a tree in the school's nearby woods.

Gilreath was immediately suspect in her untimely death.  He was convicted of murder-by-imprisonment in May of 1974, and sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years.


                                            Your obedient servant,

                                             Boz

CHAPTER 18, MURDER MOST ELITE

Chapter 18 in MURDER MOST ELITE began my chat with The old RD, (short for  Recovering Democrat),  my Democrat ex-professional politician friend habitually concerned about his early political home, the Democratic Party, had asked me to dinner. He was curious about my presenting a preview of a new book to be published, MURDER MOST ELITE, and expressed amazement that it would  reveal that the accused was not guilty of the murder of Natalia Parker Semler in 1973.

Sitting by the fireside, Jack Daniel's Black and branch water at the ready, with Dozer the Dachsund, napping by the hearth, this was like old times. I went ten rounds with RD  about the relative merits of the Obama administration, and I lost handily, but it is always a bracing political exercise working out with him. My consolation, such as it is.

"So now, Boz, what is this you're up to?"  he asked.

"I'm promoting a new book by Joan Bretz, called MURDER MOST ELITE. Going to hit the stores in a few months, I hope. Its format is similar to the installment magazines like Colliers and Saturday Evening Post of the nineteen forties, remember them? Gonna condense several key chapters in the middle of Bretz's story that show why a guy named Gilreath was not guilty of murder in 1974. Helluva story, RD, no kidding. Also I'm throwing in a couple of capsule book reviews titled BOZ'S BEST BOOK BUYS. Has a good ring to it, don't you think?" He nodded, generously refilling my glass with Jack and a splash of the branch.

"And  how do you present these excerpts? " he asked.

"Straight from the book," I answered, "with an explanation of what has gone before in the story, so the reader knows he's reading about two real legal cases of the past. It's one unauthorized non-fiction story embedded in the main fictional story line, and wow, that is different! Never been done before, to my knowledge. For readers who love a grade A exposure of the criminal justice system, this will turn their hair white, it's that exciting!" At that point,  RD's wife, Lucy, rang the dinner bell, and we feasted on the best rockfish I ever tasted. One that RD caught himself.

And now, dear readers, here is the first issue of BOZ'S BEST: I recommend the following for your reading pleasure.

BOZ'S BEST BOOK BUYS

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Johnathan Schneer. Random House, $30. Dr. Schneer documents the definitive history of how Israel finally gained legitimate political and sovereign status. In order to understand the serious problems in the Middle East today, Dr. Schneer lists a handy eleven-page glossary of the key players in this astounding drama, complete with double-crosses, triple-crosses and plenty of back-channel chicanery. One example of political egomania in 1917: Syria dreamed of flying its flag over Jerusalem. Unbelievable gall and wishful thinking are thus exposed. This book is not to be missed by the political class. And a solid higher education is provided for the average reader.

PRINCESS PEARL: The Dragon Arch by Teri Tao. Golden Peach Publications, $7.99. Kudos to translators Yanhua Teague and Lauren Teague for achieving a luminous story in English from the original Chinese by Tao. Pearl, an ambitious half-fish, half human, the princess of the Aqua Kingdom of Emerald Mirrors, vows to be the first girl to jump over the mighty Dragon Arch in the Yellow River to become a dragon, the traditional goal of the strongest male in the Aqua world. This unique story should be sold to Disney et al. as a superb vehicle for a full-length animated feature film. Charming entertainment!

AND NOW, THE MAIN EVENT

MURDER MOST ELITE

BY JOAN BRETZ

The story to date: PI/Clinical Psychologist  Nena Santana believes her young neighbor Jimmy Patton is not guilty of the murder of 14-year-old Vondi Orloff at the elite Hampton Hall boarding school. Startling resemblance of the evidence against Jimmy reminds her of the charges against one John Stephen Gilreath, always known as Steve, which pose this question: is the Orloff murder a copycat of Natalia Parker Semler's death in 1973? Nena reviews the findings of her A Team who analyzed the Gilreath cases as assigned to them as Ph.D candidates by Dean Irving Stein, Nena's mentor at Columbia University. Nena tells of the A Team's investigation, beginning in Chapter 18:

s

CHAPTER 18

Dr. Irv Stein anointed us wannabe Ph.Ds with a proper name as kind of an official-sounding moniker granting us stature: The A Group consisting of David Velasquez, Milly Drake, Donna Randolf, and me, the coordinator of all the research. He mailed our materials to us after exhorting us to apply every bit of our knowledge of psychology into our effort: the all-important final report to him.

Within a week we learned that John Stephen Gilreath's life sentence on May 23, 1974 resulted from a totally untoward and unimaginable situation: the 1970 election of three Virginia candidates for the august office of United States Senator from Virginia, surely the most exclusive club in the world.

Both the official Democratic and Republican candidates for senator, (George Rawlings, Jr. and Ray L. Garland) had insufficient support to win over the incumbent, the rich and powerful Senator Harry Byrd, who decided to run as an Independent. Byrd immediately declared that no other candidate could be included in his mailings to the electorate, which upset many a Democratic politician because endorsement by him would provide any pol a prestigious advantage in this unique election. Further, in almost every county, pro-Byrd headquarters were formed by both Democratic and Republican local party officials who again split off from their regular party organizations to support Byrd.

At this point, an influential Republican leader in Fairfax County, and Byrd-for-Senate campaign manager, John T. (Til) Hazel, set up the local Northern Virginia Republicans For Byrd campaign office in Springfield. He hired Amy Gilreath, a Vice Chairman of the Fairfax County Republican County Committee to manage the  headquarters, confident that  Amy, a highly- respected  "can-do" loyalist, energetic problem-solving worker,  and political activist, would produce a successful political operation for Byrd.

One day Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Robert F. Horan's box of Democratic campaign literature was delivered to the Byrd headquarters for insertion with the Senator's own personal campaign mailouts. In the hectic atmosphere so prevalent in most political campaigns, Amy, following the directions of Senator Byrd, tossed Horan's package in the dumpster. Amy described Til Hazel laughing "like hell" when she told her fellow workers his reaction to her sacking Horan's politically verboten material.

On the morning of October 3, 1970, Horan visited her home, and berated her so that the entire household and nearby neighbors heard his shrill, vitriol-laced insults. She, not easily intimidated, in return gave him the well-known finger.

"I'll get you, Amy Gilreath!" Horan screamed as his parting threat through the screen door.

Amy's sister, Jayne Collins, watched Horan from the kitchen window trot to his car in the driveway, rev up the motor and, tires spitting gravel, he raced in reverse gear to the street, rear-ending a neighbor's trash can, then sped away. Amy could not explain his behavior other than her trashing his box of campaign literature; she had never met the man before. Horan obviously figured he could get away with piggybacking on the Senator's mailings.

Just as the Gilreaths were ready to move into a new home in Nokesvile in nearby Prince William County, a vendetta against her surfaced. But the object was not only her. Both Steve Gilreath's  brother, Jimmy, and Amy had become targeted.

At midnight on December 8, 1970, Amy phoned Jayne in Cincinnati to recount Amy being indicted by way of a petition calling for her ouster signed by twenty-four county committee members. The charge was that she had violated Article 1, Section 2 of the party rules by working for Senator Byrd's re-election. Though other Republican officials had publicly supported Byrd, somehow she alone had been singled out for punishment.

Someone had grabbed the petition from her and in front of the entire assemblage tore it up, then threw it on the floor. Amy got down on her hands and knees, picked up all the scraps, and when she returned home, she pasted them back together.

The signers were old friends, co-political workers: J. Kenneth (Kenny) Klinge, William Moss, Barbara Hildebrand,  Jane Parris, et al., allies in her generous and successful assistance to the political party of her choice. She became overwhelmed with shock and dismay. Friends? Well, suddenly no, apparently not.

And how astonishing that practically overnight she became a pariah. People she had known for years began to avoid her. Others hung up on her when she phoned them. Hostile incidents began mounting against her and Jimmy, such as two Fairfax County police officers shooting bullets into the fenders of Jimmy's car. The following month, a cop picked up Jim for loitering at a McDonald's, for which he was never charged. A friend of Amy's reported that both her sons were branded as juvenile delinquents by the police. Another friend told Amy that a woman had claimed Jimmy had poured sugar into the gas tank of her car. The police told her they knew that Jim Gilreath did it. Yet they did not attempt to charge him.

So was the word on the street Get Gilreath?

Jim was fined $50 and sent to jail for a weekend for not coming to a full stop at a stop sign. But Jim, circling around the jail cell for hours scraping the walls and metal bars with his car keys, so freaked out the cops that they called in sick the next day rather than endure Jim's unique psychological warfare.

Under Donna Randolf's clever interview technique, Amy Gilreath quickly revealed several further incidents concerning Jim Gilreath, such as his being accused of stealing twenty-one basketballs from his high school, and indirectly thought to have been party to a drug heist,  and further, reports by her "friend" revealed that a Fairfax County judge claimed that "Jim Gilreath is no good." But she refused to name the judge.

Donna did an in-depth analysis of Amy, Steve and his brother, Jim, describing Steve as habitually accepting punishment for infractions that Jim had been guilty of because Steve could never bear to have people hassle him. Or Jim. He literally would admit to anything to get the accusers off his back. This deeply-entrenched character habit was his downfall. By May of 1974, it had cost him his freedom.

With Donna's profiles, we now had our first accurate picture of Amy, Steve and Jim. Jimmy, the direct opposite of his older brother, was a charismatic "smart-mouth," handsome as a movie star, a spectacularly good student, and immensely popular socially, but also the bane of his stepfather's existence, e.g. by having totaled two cars on the same day, and generally getting himself in one kind of controversy or other. Steve, by contrast, at 6'9", was shy, inarticulate to the point of being near-mute, withdrawn,  yet a fine artist and meticulous  draftsman, but an average student. He found communicating in his native English his most difficult problem, socially and intellectually. He had 20/200 vision that required him to wear heavy eyeglasses. Without them he could not identify an automobile license six inches away from his face.

After her divorce from the boys's  father, Stan Gilreath and Amy had married. Steve was eight years old. Stan provided the stability that had been lacking at home, but nevertheless Amy  felt that Steve remained a stricken little boy at heart because of the divorce. As a result, he found socializing and relating to even his close-knit family almost painful. His worried parents sent him to a McLean therapist, Dr. Fred E. Svobotka, hoping therapy would help him become more socialized as he entered college. But Steve had deliberately avoided attending some of his appointments, which Amy discovered when the doctor's bill arrived in the mail.

As of September 1971 Steve would attend Northern Virginia Community College, and the family would move to Nokesville, fifty miles from Washington, D.C., looking forward to enjoying their country-life dream on a three- acre mini-estate.

While Donna concentrated on the Gilreath family and friends, David Velasquez had his hands full trying to contact the legal principals. His first memo revealed that none of the judges in both Gilreath court  trials would consent to be interviewed. Several judges had died, including Robert R. Merhige, who conducted the first appeal in the Semler case. Further, neither Robert Horan nor his assistants, nor defense attorney Paul  (Pat)  Harrington in the Newbold case would grant interviews. That was our first strike out. Too many years had passed for us to contact these people with real expectations of interviewing them.

Meanwhile Milly Drake had been hitting the media archives and let me know within the first two weeks that there were almost zero accounts of the Newbold case, the first case against Gilreath at the Madeira School in Northern Virginia.

"It's as though the print media had no clue that little Lori  Gayle Newbold ever testified in court," she said. "I know she did because of the second case, the Semler murder that put Gilreath away. In that case, there's massive mention, I mean in extraordinary detail, of the Newbold case, all of it prejudiced and derogatory about Steve. More later," she said, "as I trudge through the miles of microfiche at the library."

I, beginning the long and arduous task of reading the transcripts and confessions in the two cases, found the Newbold case disturbing. Steve's official charge would be abduction with intent to defile, and assault, with the assault charge later dropped.

Officer Robert LaClair claimed in court that he arrested Gilreath on October 15, 1971 at a parking lot near Difficult Run stream, a short distance from the Madeira School.

He also said he interviewed Steve at 11:30 a.m. at the local McLean substation,  yet Steve swore that two policemen took him to the substation from a McLean mall. This is the first of many contradictions in this case. The second is that officer LaClair issued a traffic citation as the arrest warrant, a novel method of apprehending a suspect, indeed. In the space allocated for the specific traffic violation (of which there was no mention) LaClair wrote "arrested." The traffic violation charge was "abduction and attempt rape."

This citation is not irrelevant, by any means. The citation directed Gilreath to appear in Juvenile Court at 8:30 a.m. on October 18, three days later. If LaClair did find Steve on Route 193, why didn't he have Steve sign the traffic citation/arrest warrant there? That would have been normal procedure.  There is no Gilreath signature on that warrant.

Why didn't he take Steve directly to the substation? If Steve was not near the school, and two cops brought him to the local substation as Steve claimed really happened, how could LaClair have identified him as having been near the school? Where was the evidence to justify Steve's arrest? Further, what was LaClair doing on Route 193? Riding alone in a cruiser, to what purpose? That is, if that was indeed what he actually did?

Lori Gayle Newbold never positively identified Steve, nor did she even recognize Steve sitting six feet away from her before the trial began.

If it were valid, the traffic citation should have been a trial exhibit. But it was never part of the record. Basically, the narrative confession bearing Gilreath's signature was forged. Yes, it bore his name, but it was wrongly placed above the line for the signature, (an error that the finicky artist and mechanical drawing expert Gilreath would never make). It was probably traced from  his wallet contents, such as a driver's license or Social Security card.  A facsimile only.

The narrative confession stated that Steve drove from college in Annandale, Virginia, all the way to Bear Island in Maryland, swam over the dangerous Potomac River, then sprinted up the hill to the Madeira School. I found that too incredible to accept, and quickly rushed out to buy a map of the area.

The confession describes Bear island as a "small" island, which is a blatant untruth. It is not a small island "next to the Virginia side." Bear Island is 160 acres, the largest of the many islands bordering the river on the Maryland side of the Potomac. If Steve did confess to the crime, of which he had no memory of ever doing, he would surely know all the germane facts, like the size of Bear Island. Further, the psychology is wrong. If Gilreath wanted to accost a girl at the school, why would he drive all the way from Virginia to Maryland, and risk his life in the infamous whirlpools and undertows of the river? The subject of this confession wore only a towel, which he discarded when he reached Virginia. Thus he was naked the entire time with Ms. Newbold, but she testified that he wore a towel.

It cannot be both ways. A person cannot be both clothed and nude at exactly the same time.

Lori Newbold stated that Gilreath took her to a large rock or island in the river, but the confession places this confrontation at 100 yards inland, on dry land away from the river. Newbold should have had a vivid memory of where the alleged crime took place, but she stated that her assailant threw his screwdriver in the river. The confession contradicts that statement, instead claiming  it was discarded in a small pond.

Further, the confession characterized the subject as a nudist as well as mentally retarded, lurking around Madeira's air conditioning system, presumably hoping to meet unsuspecting maidens. He exerted no physical force with his weapon, an eight-inch screwdriver, a phallic symbol if there ever was one. This gentlemanly intruder even made sure that Ms. Newbold made her way safely back to the chapel auditorium at Madeira. This would have been an impossible feat, inasmuch as Steve Gilreath had never been at or near the school.  Oddly, the the confession cited several students  as eyewitnesses, yet no student was called to testify in court by the prosecution, which would have undoubtedly guaranteed Steve's being convicted.

Gilreath, so pathetically insecure and so very easily intimidated, was the perfect patsy to set up and convict.

Why weren't the many absurdities in the confession challenged in detail? That had not happened in court.

The extraordinary contradictions so far in the Newbold case caused the A Group to ask this  resounding question: who set up Steve Gilreath?

Stay tuned, dear readers.

                                                            Your obedient servant,

                                                             Boz